Fighting dogmas with zeal

"Can't we talk about this?'', Theo van Gogh asked his killer. The Moroccan, Muhammad Bouyeri, was not there for talking. He shot the Dutch film-maker who was cycling down a road in Amsterdam on November 2, 2004. The killer took out his knife and slit the Dutch man's throat and then used another knife to stab a note onto the chest of his victim. The note was addressed to Ayan Hirsi Ali, who wrote the script of a 10-minute documentary they made together in which a Muslim woman in a transparent veil addresses Allah highlighting her plight as a Muslim woman. Now living in the U.S. , she has been under tight security ever since the murder of Theo van Gogh as the murderer's note warned her to be prepared for her own death.

"Cultures are not equal, but human beings are," says Ayan Hirsi Ali in a recent interview, suggesting that all bets are off if cultural relativism advocated by votaries of multi-culturalism in Western countries continues to be treated as sacred. It is an original idea that demolishes the concept of equality of all cultures regardless of whether one culture treats its women badly or another culture upholds gender equality as a universal value. Her book Infidel: My Life (The Free Press, London, 2007) is breathtakingly authentic and questions some of the basic tenets of the religion she belonged. The book is a personal narration of her courageous journey to cross the chasm that divides the world of Islam and that of the West which she describes as the world of freedom. "I moved from the world of faith to the world of reason - from the world of excision and forced marriage to the world of sexual emancipation'' (p. 348)Born in Somalia as daughter of an opposition political activist, brought up in Mecca and Nairobi before she settled in Holland as a refugee after escaping an arranged marriage, 39-year old Ayan Hirsi Ali, who later became Liberal Party MP in Dutch Parliament, vividly tells her story of her deep crisis of faith that she underwent during her sojourn marred by her personal tension between her faith in Islam and her quest for freedom. Her escape to Holland opens her eyes to an alternative moral system. "I didn't for one instant imagine that a moral framework for humanity could exist that wasn't religious.'' (p.230). She writes about her mindset before she reached Holland where she worked as a translator and studied political science at the prestigious Leiden University.Ms. Ali's saga of constant personal struggles against her own sense of submission she has inherited from her faith in Islam and loyalty to her clan brings out the intensity of religious upbringing that makes it easy for a believer to think that his/her religion and holy book are absolute and difficult for him/her to accept that there are people who think differently. Her central concern as she enunciates in the book is that women in Islam are oppressed. "When people say that the values of Islam are compassion, tolerance, and freedom, I look at reality, at real cultures and governments, and I see that it simply isn't so. People in the West swallow this sort of thing because they have learned not to examine the religions or cultures of minorities too critically, for fear of being called racist." (p.349)The author looks at this issue in the backdrop of her experience as a refugee and then a citizen in Holland, the world's most liberal and open society where nothing is sacred and everything sacrosanct is held upto ridicule. The tolerant Dutch society finds itslef in turmoil when immigrant Muslims fail to integrate with that society. Muslim women from Islamic societies continued to be treated badly by their menfolk in Holland and multiculturalism the Dutch are so proud of prevented them from seeing the problem with seriousness it deserved. Her `doubts and defiance' gather strength when she reads Spinoza, Freud and other philosophers after she enrolled at Leiden for graduation. Her experience as an interpreter for the immigration centre allows her to focus on the sharp contrast between the Enlightenment values and Islam that doesn't encourage people to ask questions and stimulate creativity, observes Ms. Ali in her book. Islam, in her view, has "never gone through a process of Enlightenment that would lead people to question its rigid approach to individual freedom.'' (p. 266-267)Ms. Ali's complete break with Islam happened after the 9/11 attacks. "The Little shutter at the back of mind, where I pushed all my dissonant thoughts, snapped open after the 9/11 attacks, and it refused to close again.'' (p 272)She wanted to hold dogmas upto the light and when she started doing it, all hell broke out. She started facing real threats when she wanted to `become the female answer to Bin Laden'. The Muslim outrage against her reached its pinnacle after the making of the film Submission. By that time, she was elected to the Dutch Parliament as a Liberal Party nominee. Her traumatic experiences of being shifted by the Dutch security personnel from one location to another after the killing of Theo van Gogh could not have been narrated more touchingly. On a complaint from her neighbour in The Hague, a Dutch court ordered her to leave her safe-house on the ground that her neighbours had the right to safety. By that time she had already decided to move to the U.S. where she is now working with a think tank.

Infidel is the first book I read this year. It is one of the best books I have read in recent years. Its authentic voice and persuasive style and its upholding of the human spirit makes it a great read.